Today I upgraded the BIOS of a DH67CF motherboard. The upgrade was successful (at least that's what the messages on the screen said), but after the system rebooted the system became unusable.

Prior BIOS Version: BLH6710H.86A.0105.2011.0301.1654

New BIOS Version: BLH6710H.86A.0156.2012.0615.1908

Upgrade Method: F7 at POST using BIOS upgrade method from USB stick.

Symptoms after upgrade:

- No video signal detected

- No beeping from PC speaker

- Fans spin up

- HDDs spin up

Steps Attempted:

- Disconnected CMOS battery for 20 minutes -- no change.

- Removed BIOS jumper to attempt recovery -- no change (USB stick with .BIO was never accessed, and no video signal detected)

- Re-connected BIOS jumper -- no change.

At this point it seems that my motherboard has been bricked, and various searches indicate that this has happened with prior BIOS revisions. Is 156 another bad version? Maybe the fact that I was jumping from 105 -> 156 could be the problem, but I didn't see any intermediate BIOS version upgrade recommendation.

I did try it multiple times already, with only a single USB peripheral attached. I did not see any lights on my USB stick to indicate that any access to the USB was being made. I'll admit that I didn't wait 10 minutes, more like 5, but after 5 minutes of no activity I figured it was a failed recovery.

Hi, sorry to hear about your Bios upgrade situation. It caught my attention because it appears we are both in the same predicament. I have a thread relating to this problem for my DZ68DB motherboard that is worth having a look at.

In the case of the Bios upgrade you carried out, you started with a Bios that includes only a 7 series ME Firmware (0105) and moved to one that includes both a 7 series and an 8 series ME Firmware in order to support both older CPU's and newer CPU's depending on the installation, you can check these details in the 'Release Notes' document for the 0156 Bios. The relevant section is 'About This Release', all previous Bios version details are included as well.

My suspicion with the newer Bios versions is that there is a problem with the selection of the ME Firmware that is loaded when the upgrade is carried out. I can't be 100% sure about this but your symptoms are exactly the same as mine .... and I have now done it to two motherboards (just terrible). I also received the 'Bios Upgrade Successful' message before it rebooted and if you see the picture I included in my post the Management Engine Firmware is the first one that is flashed.

I don't think it's a recoverable situation, unless you have a third generation CPU to install, because I think the ME firmware applied in both our situations is the 8 series version. So when the motherboard boots and discovers that the wrong type of CPU is fitted everything is 'shutdown'. Like I said these are only my thoughts on the situation I may be mistaken. It would be great to be able to confirm this but who has 3rd generation CPU's just sitting around.

Fans spinning, the light flashes on the monitor. The screen is blank. I tried to roll back the bios to the instructions, but the treatment is not just a flash, the same situation with the cd-rom. What should I do?

This might be obvious, but if you're removing the BIOS battery or attempting a BIOS recovery, make sure to remove power from the board. This means unplugging the AC and waiting for the green LED on the board to turn off. It's also worth trying the recovery with unnecessary internal things unplugged (HDD, DVD, card reader, etc).

If none of this works, it's time for warranty. If you (or someone you know) is an Intel partner, you can get an advance replacement in 1-2 days.

I am pursuing warranty replacement for this motherboard. I'm being told it will cost $20 to send a replacement board when the fault is clearly with the BIOS released by Intel. Why doesn't Intel take responsibility for something like this?

it appears that the bios is on an SPI-programmable chip. it's not socketed, so it's a bit more "interesting". it appears that the whole chip is marked as a "connector" - IJ314. there is also an (unpopulated) pin header quite close to the chip - JE16. i suppose one of them is the official method to do in-situ-programming. i'd need the documentation of that method (pinout if it's the header, and how one is supposed to power the chip while keeping the rest of the board from interfering).

also, i need a 1:1 flash image of a bios version that is known to work with that precise board (with sandybridge processors), or a tool which generates such an image from the normal .bio downloads.

First of all, we only recommend updating the BIOS if such version includes a fix for your issue.

Incremental updates are suggested as best practice, you may jump few other versions though. Specifically for 6 Series Intel® motherboards, you will need to update to the transition version, and then to the 3rd Gen-Ready BIOS version; then, you may continue incrementally as needed. This information is available in the article below (also posted above by Intel Mondo) and in the BIOS release notes for each model.

first, i had a reason to upgrade: that was a (late) attempt to stabilize the system when using the intel graphics (it ran fine with an nvidia card, but nvidia is about to phase out driver support for it, and i didn't want to continue wasting power anyway).

neither the bios' built-in flasher nor any file/page associated with the .bio download recommended small increments. you need to try harder to make the recommendation arrive at the user's end in time.

and second, i'm not sure how your response is supposed to be useful in any way, given that the starting point of this thread are boards which are already *bricked* and don't respond to any attempt of "end user friendly" recovery *at all*.